Decieving Eyes Start

Deceiving Eyes

Prologue



‘Vampires’ the monsters of the night, the race without souls, hearts or an ounce of mercy in their frozen veins, thoughtlessly killing to satiate their undying thirst for blood… at least, that’s what I thought.



















Chapter 1

My tiny feet thud heavily against the forest floor, strange for a child of my height and weight. I have one foot bare except for a tattered and mud-stained white sock, the other still covered in my black school shoe, the strap chaffing against the bridge of my foot. I don’t know why I’m running, I can’t remember, all I know is that I’m scared and I need to get back to my class, back to the tedious school trip I ran away from, back to the old manor house in which my teacher was lecturing fellow pupils with pointless history. It was from here I’d escaped hurriedly, having no interest in history, as no seven year olds ever do. But in this case I had been the only one daring enough to escape, maybe looking back on it now, the only one stupid enough. I had wandered into the forest behind the manor house, and followed an animal track hoping to find a pond to sit by in the sun, but I just carried on walking, having no success finding a pond, until the sun was starting to slink from the centre of the sky. I paused, looking around me and upwards at the sun, the forest suddenly seemed so much larger as I realised the painful truth of my journey, I was well and truly lost in a vast jungle with no way out.

I think my mind went blank then, unwilling to remember the sheer terror I had felt when encountering the thing that caused me to start running. I believe this because the next thing I knew was this, running through the vast forest one shoe on, panting for breath with adrenaline pumping through my veins, giving me a source of energy that would run out all too soon, and one question that remained lodged in my mind
‘What am I running from?’ it isn’t who, just what, and the thing is, and I know the answer… ‘My darkest nightmare.’

Finally I stopped in a large clearing, my energy spent. The clearing was almost too picturesque. The red setting-sun cast its red light over the clearing, dappling the lush green ferns scattered around an old felled tree. The light merged into their lush green colour and made a hazel colour, like that of my classmate’s eyes. The red flowers that hid in the shade under the trunk were caught in the light, basking them a bloody red colour; a colour that chilled me to the bone. A colour that made me remember the dangers of a forest at night. There were animals that would pad silently but swiftly on that trail at night, great bears and lithe wolves, searching and hungry. But these weren’t the creatures that froze both my mind and body with a chilling fear, my mother had warned me of other creatures, no not creatures, monsters. Monsters that walked the forests at night hunting humans down spitefully and needlessly. But just these thoughts alone where enough to freeze both mind and body so that once sitting on the fallen trunk I could no longer move.

I sat there, waiting breathlessly shivering, waiting for the rescue party that was sure to come, surely they would come for me. They must have noticed that I was gone by now. For some unknown reason my thoughts slunk to my mother, praying and begging she would descend from the skies to protect me. For the first time I noticed the fat, hot tears rolling down my childishly chubby face, but what use would crying and begging to the heavens be? Since when had that worked? She had left me two years ago, there was no point now, and she had made her choice.

I felt a tingle course down my spine, my hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rising up instinctively; I looked up from my knees. Tears falling jerkingly onto my lap. In front of me stood a woman so mournfully beautiful that it sent shivers ran down my spine, a primeval warning, preparing my body to run for my life, but I arrogantly ignored it. Her violet eyes bore into mine, expressing her immortal grief. I should have listened to that warning my body had told me, it had been an near fatal mistake to ignore it, but at the time I didn’t care, she was so inhumanly beautiful that as a dumbstruck child I couldn’t look away, let alone run for my life and listen to my fight or flight instinct, instead I stared up at her in awe.

I started as she reached out her right hand, with a white handkerchief dangling from the forefinger and the thumb. I stretched out my chubby hand for it and she let it drop gracefully into palm, it had looked delicate and thin but as it landed softly in my clasp I felt that it was soft but sturdy. I looked up in wonder and she spoke, her crimson lips glittering with every smooth and slight movement of her mouth.
“I am so sorry little one, dry your tears.” She muttered in an almost caressing voice, way too enchantingly, so that I could not help but follow her instructions. Then she repeated that same sorrowful phrase. “I am so sorry…”

I looked up from drying my eyes with the handkerchief in time to see her lunge at me. My mind went blank.

I woke up. Two massive faces towering above me, both set with the same worried expression. But all I could do was feel the sticky feeling of warm blood spilling over my neck, my head filling with the sickly smell of blood.